Being home this time, for some reason, felt completely different than most other times. Maybe I'm more structured - I woke up before 10:00am every morning and enjoyed quality me time, saw old friends, and had a perfectly lovely lowkey Thanksgiving dinner with only a few minor bumps along the way.

I went for a run on Friday evening - it was pleasantly brisk, with the residual fragrance of rain hanging lightly in the air - and I passed two high school girls running in the opposite direction. I made brief eye contact with the first girl, and as the second girl ran by, she called out, "Keep it up!" It was so unexpected, yet it gave me the push I needed to not only make it home without stopping, but to sprint the last block before I reached my driveway.

It's probably mostly in my head, but with those three words she had expressed a kinship between us that, in plainclothes in our town somewhere, we would probably never know was there. I wouldn't classify myself as a "runner" in the true sense of the word, but we both understand that drive, that push to put our bodies through something that is so natural, yet in some aspects downright painful, in an effort to cleanse, to condition, to strengthen.

As I ran, I also realized that it had been five years since I, then 18, had sprained my ankle running and thus ended what had been six months of intense physical training. Thanksgiving of 2001 had been the beginning of my ongoing struggle to get back into a somewhat constant routine of running, uninterrupted by down periods and frenetic eating habits - and five years later I'm running through the time that's passed and marveling at how quickly it's all gone by. Who am I now, and who was I back then?

I'm coming back from this long weekend excited about life, and the way I'm living it now, and how I'm looking to make it even fuller. I'm making several resolutions and going to try my damnedest to stick to them, just in time to welcome a new year and to turn 24 in just two short months.